


A Love That Feels Like Coming Home

by adelaide_rain



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Forbidden Love, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Or perhaps just ineffable love, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 10:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19149118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: There is a single black feather on Aziraphale’s bedside table.





	A Love That Feels Like Coming Home

There is a single black feather on Aziraphale’s bedside table. 

No-one knows about it. No-one knows about the bedside table, for that matter, or the bed, or the room itself. It’s above the shop, locked away in a fold of spacetime - a neat bit of miracle-working if he says so himself. A fine and private place.

He sits there now on Egyptian cotton sheets with the feather in his hand. It’s very soft and very black. No sheen of green or blue; no sheen at all. Completely matte, it is like a slash cut in the fabric of the world. Looking at it is slightly disturbing; fitting, since it’s a demon feather. 

Crowley’s, of course. Not stolen - Aziraphale, in his darker moments, had thought about it - but given freely. They’d both been drunk, and were both Not Talking about what happened before the Fall. It happens sometimes. They’ll look at each other - _look_ at each other, in a way that would mean nothing to anyone but them. But to them, it means _I remember_ and _I miss you_ and _It’s not fair, it was never fair._ They don’t speak, of course; they don’t do anything except drink until the melancholy passes.

But on that night, Crowley had opened his mouth and Aziraphale had been terrified - elated - at the thought that he might say something. He hadn’t. He’d sighed instead, and shaken his head before unfurling his wings and plucking free a single feather. He had offered it to Aziraphale wordlessly, and after a very long moment, Aziraphale had taken it. 

He’s had it since. Every so often, he comes here to this hidden room and holds the feather, and thinks, and remembers. 

Remembers a time before time, before the Fall, before imperfection had been invented. He remembers an angel with red hair and good cheekbones and a sharp smile that had always softened around Aziraphale. And he’d often been around Aziraphale. Where else would either of them be? 

But then his angel started to listen to others. He had started to ask questions. 

_Please, Kyriel,_ Aziraphale had begged, stroking a hand down his soft white wing, _don’t._

Kyriel’s smile, always sharp, had turned razor-edged. _Why not?_

What happened next… Aziraphale can’t think about it. Has never been able to think about it, not once in six thousand years. Sometimes his thoughts edge towards it, images flashing across his mind of white feathers soaked in blood, of Kyriel screaming, of Michael _smiling_ and raising the slick red sword again-

Aziraphale always turns away from the thoughts, and he always feels like a traitor. 

Now, he strokes a finger over the black feather, then hears a familiar, beloved voice calling his name, muffled by walls and floors and folds in spacetime. He closes his eyes for a moment, then puts the feather very gently back on his bedside table. 

“Sorry!” He calls as he steps out of the room, leaning over the bannister to see Crowley in the middle of his bookshop. 

“Shirking your duties? What if one of your _many_ customers had needed you?” Crowley smirks at him and at the empty shop before lifting the bottle of wine he’s holding. “Fancy closing early?”

Aziraphale always fancies closing early, especially where Crowley and wine are involved. He comes downstairs and locks the door with a wave of his hand, then opens it again with a sigh when a pack of wide-eyed students scurry out from the deepest recesses of the shelves. 

Finally, the two of them are alone with only the muted sounds of Soho for company.

“Are we drinking to anything in particular?” Aziraphale asks, putting on a record and getting glasses from his small, spotless kitchenette.

“I thought we’d drink to us.”

Aziraphale freezes, and looks over his shoulder at Crowley. His expression is too calm, his stance too casual. 

Taking a breath he doesn’t need, Aziraphale takes the bottle of wine and uncorks it - with a corkscrew, of course; it would be uncouth to use a miracle for something so mundane. 

Pouring the wine, Aziraphale offers Crowley a glass and then raises his own. 

“To us,” he says, very softly.

Crowley clinks his glass to Aziraphale’s, and when he smiles, there’s nothing sharp in it. 

They sit, and they drink, but slowly. Outside the day darkens, neon supplanting sunlight. 

They don’t talk much, which is their normal when they’re dwelling on what was. But there’s something different here, now, after everything almost ended. The need to speak simmers under Aziraphale’s skin. 

“Why do you wear those sunglasses around me?” Aziraphale asks finally, when even the streets of Soho are something like quiet.

Crowley grows still as a snake in shade and considers his wine so that he doesn’t have to look at Aziraphale.

“Because you don’t like my eyes anymore.” 

The honesty is unexpected, and cuts bone-deep. 

Aziraphale opens his mouth to answer, then gulps down the last of his wine before joining Crowley on the loveseat. Crowley still doesn’t move, though there’s a wariness to him now.

Neither of them are drunk, not after half a bottle of wine. But the alcohol has loosened something that was never exactly airtight, something that has been shaking around between them like a loose screw for six thousand years. 

Sitting close as they are, their thighs are pressed together. Crowley is warm; he smells of sandalwood and ever so slightly of smoke. 

Aziraphale lifts a hand that somehow doesn’t shake and pulls Crowley’s sunglasses off, laying them on the table. Yellow eyes with narrow pupils consider him warily.

“You-“ Aziraphale starts, and finds there’s nothing else he wants to say. Crowley is the only thing that matters.

“Me?” Crowley asks, still wary. 

Aziraphale breathes. “Us.”

“Angel-“

“I miss you.”

_“Angel.”_

Once upon a time, when everything was new, a fellow angel invented the kiss. Kyriel and Aziraphale were early adopters. Aziraphale has never kissed Crowley, but he has wanted to since time began.

Very slowly, giving Crowley the chance to pull away, to refuse, to punch him, Aziraphale leans forward. When Crowley does none of those things, Aziraphale presses his lips very softly to Crowley’s. It’s nice. It’s sweet. It’s _them._

_I know you,_ Aziraphale thinks, joyful, and does it again. Crowley gasps. The sound is rare enough to make Aziraphale pull back to see those narrow pupils blown wide.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley begs, but Aziraphale isn’t sure if he’s begging him to stop or to do it again.

“Is it too much?” 

“No. Yes.” A pause. A kiss back. A broken plea. “Don’t Fall.”

“I don’t intend to.” Another kiss, a little slicker. Aziraphale swallows and wonders what this body could do, if he really tried. 

Abruptly Crowley stands up and steps away from Aziraphale. 

“Neither did I,” he says, and his smile has found its edge. “Yet here we are.” He reaches down to pick up his sunglasses, but Aziraphale grabs his hand before he can. 

“I do like your eyes,” he says, making Crowley suck in a breath through his teeth. Without letting go of his hand, Aziraphale stands. “I like everything about you. I always have. I didn’t want to admit it, but-”

“You didn’t want to admit it because it’s _wrong._ I’m a demon.”

“I know.”

 _“Wrong,”_ Crowley says again. He doesn’t pull his hand away. “We didn’t know what the wrong thing was, back then. But we do now.”

“I won’t Fall.”

“You don’t know that.”

They look at each other as the sky outside grows light. 

“Tell me to stop,” Aziraphale says, “And I will.”

Crowley is trembling ever so slightly beneath Aziraphale’s touch. “Don’t tempt me, angel.”

“But-”

“We can’t.”

“But-”

“We’re already in trouble.”

“But-”

“They’ve still not forgiven us for averting Armageddon.”

 _“ButIloveyou.”_ The words rush together before Crowley can interrupt him again. 

Crowley looks like Aziraphale has slapped him. Shocked. Hurt. Then he closes his eyes and takes a breath. When he opens them, he grabs Aziraphale by the lapels and pulls him in. Aziraphale is half-expecting to be snarled at, but Crowley kisses him. There’s nothing hesitant about it this time, though it’s still soft and steeped in emotion. It sends Aziraphale reeling, only the hands on his jacket, against his chest, holding him in place. 

_Kyriel,_ he thinks, heart fluttering. _Crowley._ The name doesn’t matter; Aziraphale’s heart knows him whatever he’s calling himself, whatever colour his eyes are.

“I won’t Fall,” Aziraphale says. “Because I love you. And love is never wrong.”

“Oh, Aziraphale, you bloody idiot,” Crowley says helplessly and kisses him again. 

Aziraphale kisses him back. He keeps kissing him back.

He doesn’t know where this is going, doesn’t have a clue. Isn’t sure it matters, as long as Crowley is with him. 

And he will be; he always has been.

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the most self-indulgent fic I’ve ever written. It’s basically a love song to fifteen-years-ago-me. Back then, my headcanon was that Crowley and Aziraphale were soulmates before the Fall, made to be the other half of each other. Both of them were achingly bitter about Crowley falling because angels... well, they don’t have free will, do they? So falling - they didn’t have any choice about that, did they? (I’m pretty sure I picked up these ideas from Lucifer and Murder Mysteries.)
> 
> So here, fifteen-years-ago-me. I hope it makes you smile. 
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/adelaide_rain) and sometimes on [tumblr.](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/)


End file.
